And, forced by circumstances I decided to write this book.
On the one hand I do not like writing, and on the other, I think the facts should be enough by itself, without further comments.
This time, after so many years, the demands and questions from friends and correspondents, especially on my last invention that forced me to take a pen and write again.
I owed them an explanation. So here they are:
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I
My machine is intended to transform the rotary motion of our engines in alternative, and I called it "Martian" in homage to the inhabitants of the planet Mars, which according to Wells, no longer make use of the wheel, but only automatic legs in all its machines, among which includes the huge chariots devastating London, quoted in "The War of the Worlds" - "Ah! “ They say, “these novelists, Jules Verne, Wells, such visionaries they are!”. “Did you read" I would answer, if he wanted to discuss "the latest work about our secrets on aircraft navigation or sidereal navigation?" But I will not argue.
Let's get back to the "Martian".
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| Luiz Pagano Historian, speitialist on Santos=Dumont, wearing 'THE MARTIAN' |
These are the circumstances in which I conceive it.
For over twenty years I am passionate about skiing, since than, I was obsessed with the obligation to waste hours climbing the mountain height, before enjoying the long descent - deep pleasure , but that would be uncomplicated if the legs were not extremely exhausted by the preceding strenuous climb.
For a long time the problem seemed impossible to be solved.
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One day however, during the winter of 1925-1926, almost reaching to the top of Mont Joli, which dominates Magève, I was exhausted, like a locomotive without steam. Infinitely tired, I stopped with one ski ahead and the other just behind, no longer having the strength to pull them! This invariably happened after a climb. Immobile in thet position, curseing the poor man's inventiveness, which had not yet adapted a motor to the needs of skier and mountaineer.
It was at this very moment, that looking at the tip of my ski placing far ahead, I thought: "But here's a real pivoting point, because the seal skin prevents my ski to retreat.
If from that point, by a thread, I pull the heel of my other foot, it will reach and overcome my other ankle and only will stop when reach the same hight of this point.
This ski will then be placed at the same position occupied by the other in the last instant, and a second wire will allow me to start, with the other ski, the same maneuver. "For, as the first researchers in the direction of the balloons use to say, " Give us a point of support (pivot) - here is the answer to the whole issue. "
The problem was now resolved. It was necessary to put it into practice, or bring it to reality with one engine and automatically move back and forth, within a range of more than one meter.
What the existing mechanical would offer at that point? A conne crankshaft and a connecting rod, better say, a conne crankshaft with 60cm and a connecting rod of about two meters. For the skier, two conne crankshafts and two rods. I obviously could not conceive it (this way). So, I was forced to invent something new.
Here's what I realized: the rod, I replaced them by the two wires that, if made in steel, would not be greater than the thickness of a hair. The conne crankshafts would then be repalced by two smal barrel made of light magnesium, of only 25 grams, which would be like small winches to the threads - and I think that is not much exaggeration to say that the moving parts of this transformer is a hundred times lighter that the rods in the old system. And the low inertia of moving parts is of great interest in a machine which is subject to continuous gear invertions.
The first picture shows my 95 grams transformer designed for an engine of 1 / 10 HP put on the back of a skier. Figure number 2 shows a greater model , of 450 grams, for a 2 HP motor, or even more.
See now how they work.
Take, for example, the large model (Fig.2)
The rotary motion of the motor is received by pinion R and, chained in the tree O, which goes to the bearings P1 and P2. Under this tree are two barrels A and B, on which the wires are wound like it was mentioned before. Finally, among these, a disk D, attached to the shaft by a long key that can slide along it. It is controlled by a system composed of an inner cable T and a lever L, The barrels A, B and disk D that holds the correspondents cavities and saliencies, we see here that we can change using the lever L to one or the other barrel over the axis O.
Lets talk now about the threads F1 and F2 of the drums. In this present case they will bind each at the tip of a ski, through a pulley attached to the heel of your opposite foot, and before that, two small holes L1 and L2, that have two knots a little bit ahead N1 and N2 not exceed two holes of this position, automatically ensures the gear shift, let's see how:
With the engine fired, the belt moves the axis R and the disk D, simple as that.
To start the alternative movement, to gear, lets push, say, by a command, the lever L, it pulls the arm T, which applies the disk D on the barrel B. This comes in line with the tree and turns with it. The wire F2 is coiled then on the barrel-B and the different parts are in the position of Figure 1. This movement should continue until node N2 hit the piece T2 and pull it. But this strike is connected to the lever L, which will be triggered, which will result in moving the disk D to the left, which means disengage the barrel B and engage barrel A. Now it is the time for the wire F, in this second phase, to coil itself, until the arrival of the node N1 on the point of strike; And this again will reverse the gear of the barrels. Notice that during this second time, the wire pulled by ski F2 will uncoil over his barrel, which can rotate freely.
This double movement, in case the skier, should happen about twice per second. But I pray to you my young man or my beautiful girl reader not to worry about it. You not even suspect that the engine valves of your cabriolet open and close more than 60 times per second. It is even said that the atoms inside the molecules, that serve them as prison, are so restless, so excited, going from right to left and left to right, ten million of billion times per second. But I have to admit a limited reliance on the accuracy of these measurements.
On my machine, are strikes that could be accounted, that give the same appearance, which is by the way very entertaining, of a living being.
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I now present two figures explaining the movement of the skis.
In the first (Fig. ..), the ski is positioned right behind. The wire attached to its tip has just finished his work in bringing the sole of his left foot forward, and its node, arriving at the point of strike, change the gear in the transformer. The wire connected to the tip of the other ski - the left - will then begin to coil up in his little winch. Pushing the right sole to the position of the other figure (Fig. ... ...). Again, the phase of gear will invert, and that about twice per second.
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For me to be able to convert my invention to the fans, this winter season, and also, show them, in a practical way, the equipment in operation, I’ve manufactured a much larger and more powerful than the other, since its engine has a power of 2, 5 HP and will be placed on two skis, instead of being attached on the back.
Apart from that, if the winter be ready soon, I'll put on wheels initially to test it this summer on the lawns or beaches.
What is curious about this machine is that, like oxen pulling carts, the locomotive that pulls its vagons, the truck pulling trailers and even horse in skijoring, pulling skiers, my machine will push them!
Practice of Skijorking - photo of Santos-Dumont
That's right, you'll see this little machine behind two, three, four man or even more, all in single file, pushed by “cordeletas” (small threads).
Here goes a combination of words as new as my invention.
Do not think, incidentally, I am guided by a fantasy. The system, in all respects, work best from behind. Let us observe that - good change of procedures – would be the machine by itself, driven by last skier. You have to actually consider it as a generator of energy that is transmitted in the form of coming and going of two tiny wires. The respective array of skiers are maintained by a combination of bamboo and light Bowden cables that guide the control leads.
Mme Ponget testing the "Martian"
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Aeronautics has become the master idea of my life, and still interferes in the smallest concerns of my spirit. This little invention, hardly conceived to help a enjoyable, but very tiring sport, is likely to have considerable importance in my work of predilection.
Time will tell if my imagination did not abuse my expectations.
In this sense, a third machine is under development, with a 30 horsepower engine, weighing 15kg. It is intended for the “flying man” and here's how I envision it operation: on a frame, carrying engine and pilot, two large wings are placed to beat, on the length of the line.
They are formed by a thin mesh, whose bottom face is covered with feathers, each one of these plumes can also rotate around its axis.
When the wing goes up,the feathers goes up and let the air pass by the space formed. When, instead, the wing goes down, all feathers are supported by the screen, forming a counter surface, whose strength is sufficient to lift the machine.
The figure .... clearly shows how the tranformer works on the wings. One of the control cables is directed downward and divides into two branches, each passing over a pulley and coming to connect the wings to download them stops the other wire of the transformer, arranged on top, similarly, serves to raise the sails *.
(* la voilure)
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These machines, which I have just barely described, are only the first applications of my transformer. I predict many others, even the mechanic pedestrian.
Who knows if we will not see one of these days, like the Martian machines of Wells, cars and trains using mechanical legs? The fantasies of Jules Verne, his submarines, his airships, flying machines, long entertained the audience. But in 1929, are no longer fantasies.
Our sages already foresaw good results from the previously unknown vibratory movements and alternative (apart form those already known), rotating movements. - I envision for Wells, creator of fantasies, the same inventive career that his French counterpart had.
I believe, dear reader, that after this exhibition that tried to do the shortest possible, I was able to describe a curious machine, not only as a novelty, but also for a future use, because of its large number of possible applications.
As with all inventions by me accomplished throughout my life, I did not ask patents. Meeting my highest pleasure and all my reward in the struggle for the solution of the problem, and not on prospective earnings.
So will be it, then, my pleasure, that people may copy my new invention, to the delight of young athletes and to the progress of all mankind.
I only ask one thing: a bit of recognition and forgetting a little slower than that I have experienced in the past.
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II
It was, in fact - I can it say today - an event a little painful for me to see, after my work with the dirigible and with the heavier than air, the ingratitude of those who covered me with praises not so long ago.
I conducted my experiences in Paris, in front of the people and the press, who witnessed, I received from the Aero Club of France, as a pioneer of aviation, the homage of the monument of Saint-Cloud and the memorial stone of Bagatelle, the government officially consecrated me with honors the French ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and I feel compelled to violate my unwillingness to talk about myself - the self is detestable - to defend these witnesses and this dedication that sometimes recklessly, seem to have been forgotten.
It is more like a proof of my gratitude than a claim, unnecessary by the way, for the history will not by written turning the time, but with facts and documents.
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From 1901 to 1903, was in everybody’s mouth , all over the world, my successes with dirigibles.
In 1906, my name is praised to the skies again, this time as the first flying man. Here, in support of these sayings, one page of L'Illustration, 18 October 1906. It is impossible here to cite all the newspapers that referred to me in those terms, but what is certain is that everyone, with no exception, was in agreement on this point.
I will not quote here in order not to overload this book.
Soon, however, to meet my young friends demands whom interest the efforts of pioneers, bring all these documents on a second volume that will be completed with the help of evidence, this brief summary.
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Some years pass, and everything is forgotten. Even if its granted to me, the honor of being the first man to get around the Eiffel Tower in dirigibles, but believed that my balloons were worthless! As if some machine had been born perfect from the first day it was conceived! Observe the boats of some fifty years ago! And the cars of some thirty years ago! (Translator's note – it must be taken into consideration the date of the text - 1929)
For the airplane, the lack of memory is even more complete. According to some, the Wrights were the first to fly. For others it was Ader.
Supporters of the Wrights understand that them flew in North America from 1903 to 1905.
These flights would have occurred near Dayton, in a field whose neighborhood has a Tramway line.
I can not but be deeply surprised by this unexplained fact, unique, unknown: That the Wright brothers did for three and a half years, numerous mechanics flight, without a journalist and as perceptive U.S. press was mobilized to go see them, control them, and take advantage of the most beautiful story of the season!
And what a season!
We were at the height of the career of Gordon Bennett, the typical American journalist, founder of the great stories, which had sent one of his journalists, Livingstone, looking for Stanley in Africa, then unknown and unexplored.
He encouraged everything that was new. Remember the Gordon Bennett Cup for free balloons, and automobiles.
I use to received in my office almost every day and night, one of his reporters. "We", he told me, "we are on a tour to tell the story of the world. Prodigiously We are interested in your work. " And those visits, almost daily, have been reported on his newspaper.
How then imagine that, at the same time, the Wright brothers circled in the air for hours, without anyone been aware of it?
And it is in "1909" that the Wright brothers first came to France, time which they show for the first time their machine. They have kept, they said, as a secret for five years their first flight on December 17, 1903.
However, - I ask you good attention to what I write here - if their machine shown at the end of 1908, first in the United States and later in France, because they would have received an offer of 500,000 francs from a French tycoon. This investor asked them, in exchange, public demonstrations of its apparatus and the assignment of their patents to France.
However, in 1904, time of the Universal Exposition in St. Louis, they say, their machine was already flying for more than one year - and St. Louis is only a few hundred kilometers from the gentlemen’s house - was on the agenda a prize of 500,000 francs, the same as that offered in 1908. And here, no patent had been ceded! But, you see, these 500,000 francs is no longer interesting. They preferred to wait four years and travel 10,000 km to contest on French offer at the moment me myself, the Farman, Blériot and the others already were flying.
Also note that from 1903 to 1908, the Wright brothers had a horror, a terrible dislike for journalists. They will not show anyone their "miracle. " For know the following: In my experience with aircraft in 1903, the engine weighed 10 lbs lighter per horsepower (HP) and in 1908, this proportion had fallen to 3 Kgs per horsepower.
What should be taken into account, in short, is that the Wrights did not fly, or even show their machine, but in 1908.
They had as witness of the flight of 1903 only one sister and two “intimate” friends. Is this proof enough? And this "proof" is not in contradiction with its shortage of 500,000 francs on Saint Louis?
All this is pitifully suspect, further noted that, when they come to Europe, Voisin, framana, Blériot and others had flown after me. Not until two years after those European flights the Wright appear, with a better machine than ours, and would not be, they say, more than a copy of their 1903 airplane.
Soon after Levasseur who came out with his wonderful airplane Antoinette, so superior to anything that existed then! For twenty years he devoted himself to the problem. Could not have said it also was a monoplane that his copy of a model flown several years before? But Levasseur didn’t.
What would say Edison, Graham Bell and Marconi, then if they had made a public presentation of the light bulb, the telephone or the wireless telegraphy, and the comes up a man with a lamp, a telephone or telegraph improved, saying that was built long before and given as a witness ...... his sister! ?
The case Ader, here it goes, no comments:
Commissioned by the War Minister in 1895 to build an aircraft at government expense, Ader, after a two-year work and an expenditure of 700,000 francs, convened the committee to observe his flight.
The committee makes a report that is sent to the Minister of War.
The minister cancels the work and credits of Ader.
By 1906, Ader publishes a book in which he declares that flew in 1897, that the report was favorable, but he would be never able see it. Archdeacon campaigned for knowing the truth.
Senator D'Estournelles Constant even wrote a book that ends with these sentences:
(space of three blank lines)
The report is published by the Journal of Aero, here goes:
(another space of three blank lines)
With over 80 years, the same general has stated that in 1908 Ader flew in the day in question, 300 meters.
None of the other witnesses, that I know, ever came to declare something similar.
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Who, indeed, humanity owes the credit of air navigation by the heavier than air? To the experiments done in secret (they even claim to have done everything in order no to turn public their work)
[... Ils disent eux-memes, pour avoir tout fait qu'on ne pas suivi leurs travaux] and without any decisive proof? The Ader, that had an overwhelming report against him, done by an elite officer and signed by a young general,and has nothing on his favor but the declaration of this same general, octogenarian now? Or are the pioneers, working in broad daylight, who’s the first step - my flight of 250 meters at Bagatelle - was greeted by all the press as
« minute mémorable dans l’Histoire de l’aviation ». (“memorable minute in the history of Aviation”).
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